Welcome to my world, my world of turbos, tyre smoke, and tuning...

I've known Thomas Zurawski for years, right from when he operated from a tiny little workshop in central Gloucester, in fact we now live 5min down the road from each other, but he has nooo fucking idea I'm writing this (TBF I only decided it'd be an interesting feature earlier today), so this will be a surprise to him to say the least.One thing's for sure, I'm glad I know him, in fact I think all of his customers are, as he's the type of tuner I think we all expect/hope tuners to be in our heads, but in fact are rare, and that's someone who can basically create pretty much anything you can dream up.No matter how unusual or one-off, he finds a way to do it.

I've worked with and for tuners constantly for the last 15 years, and I've seen it all. From amazing unsung geniuses, to appallingly bad and shouldn't be in business. From basic hot hatches to Formula 1 and WRC cars. From backyard tuners to enormous warehouse sized places.Ignoring the bad and even the average tuners, and just talking about the great ones (I'll try and talk about some of them in future features), they generally do whatever they specialise in brilliantly, but most, totally understandably, stick to what they know, stay well within their comfort zone, and just do what they do best. If any requests come in for something very different, it's generally either discouraged/refused, or will be hugely expensive as any work they don't specialise in will be farmed out elsewhere.

When it comes to custom fabrication it's a similar situation too, as I know a lot of absolutely incredible fabricators, some of which would make a good feature on here too actually, but again, wisely enough, they stick to what they know best.

Because of the above, I've found over the years, and no doubt most of you have too, getting custom work made, unless you're very rich or can do it yourself, is very, very tricky.

But this is where Zurawski Motorsport is different, as Thomas is genuinely the only person I've ever met who I can go to with strange/crazy/one-off tuning ideas, and not only does he always say "Sure, we can do that", but he's not bullshitting either. He not only has the fabrication skills, but he genuinely understands tuning too, so what you have in mind, what you hope for, is what the end result actually is.

I first used him when he was fairly unknown, 6-7 years ago, to weld a few things for me. It was simple stuff, but I heard he was a shit hot welder, and was local, so it was ideal. From these basic jobs and talking to him, it became clear he knew what he was doing with tuning as well as fabricating, and as I had an idea in mind, and couldn't previously find anyone who'd do it, I went to him with a couple of bits of metal and what seemed to me like a good idea, and the rest is history.What I wanted, but didn't exist, was a super short runner twin scroll turbo manifold for a 13B rotary engine. All manifolds available then were longer runner than I wanted, single scroll, or both, and was told what I wanted didn't exist as it wasn't possible.I explained what I wanted and why, and within a few days he calls me and says it's done...

As time's gone on, Zurawski Motorsport has moved to a much bigger premesis in Ledbury, and the main things he now does are almost 'production' parts rather than 1-offs, albeit ones that didn't exist (or indeed were called impossible) until he designed them, such as the Toyota 1UZ V8 engine and manual gearbox conversion parts for 3-Series BMWs, big power twin scroll turbo setups for RHD inline 6 BMWs, and 1UZ V8 big single turbo conversions, all of which he sells to customers all over the world...

But why Thomas, and Zurawski Motorsport in general, has ended up with the large following and the respect they have, is because everything the company has done originally comes from an individual customers crazy idea/dream, and while others say they can't do it or expect horrendous money to do so, it's always the same "Sure, no problem" from them, and the result is mad shit like this...

Mid-engine SR20 Time Attack Silvia? ​"Sure, no problem"

No, forget the SR20, fit a 1UZ Toyota V8 and a flippin' massive turbo in the same place.​"Sure, no problem"

Twin scroll tubular manifold on a tractor with a massive Holset turbo?​"Sure, no problem"

What about a BMW V8, in an E30, with twin turbos, massive intercooler, and a WRC style direct port anti-lag system?"Sure, no problem"

Why not build a completely custom bike, and I mean REALLY fucking custom, even make the bloody frame and wheels yourself?"Sure, no problem"

How about build a twin turbo setup with ITBs and insane custom plenum for some crazy off-road lightweight race truck?​"Sure, no problem"

Make a WRC/Rallycross style twin plenum equal flow intake for an RB20 and help it produce 470bhp (on stock head/cams) that has full boost by just 4000rpm (despite a 600bhp rated single scroll turbo!) that's still going strong after many years of hard use?"Sure, no problem"

OK, OK, we get it, they can build some mental looking stuff...

But these things don't just look mental, the ARE mental. A big thing I like about Zurawski Motorsport, and why I've used them for so many of my stupid projects and ideas, is Thomas REALLY gets tuning, and works things out properly via a mix of sound tuning principles and his own experience. Steve Will's awesome E36 M3 turbo is a good example of this. It already was a 700bhp turbo monster with a fully forged engine, but he went to Zurawski Motorsport not looking for more power, but similar power but with a much improved powerband.So off came the log manifold 99% of RHD turbo BMWs use, off came the stock inlet plenum, and what was fitted instead was the Zurawski twin scroll manifold and twin plenum equal flow inlet manifold, a setup Zurawski Motorsport now has available to any customer who requires it.And, well, the difference in how the car performs, despite the same size turbo and not a single change to the engine internals, is nothing but incredible, as the dyno comparison below shows...

A big big reason why his stuff works is, unlike many (though they'd never admit it), he really does calculate and measure everything rather than make a best guess, and it's actually quite odd/bizarre when you see him do it, especially for someone like me that sucks at maths, as he does it mostly with a pencil and paper, like so...

It's also worth mentioning his shit is STRONG too! Unlike so many exhaust manifolds which crack all the time, his stuff is made from thick, and top quality, stainless steel, and welded not to look pretty in internet pics (though it does), but to be fucking bulletproof, even with hard anti-lag use and so on.​To the extent customers have had quite big crashes in their cars that bent chassis rails and so on, but did the manifold crack? Nope.

So yeah, it's not a big flashy company, but what Zurawski Motorsport does it pretty unlike anyone else I've found in all my years of pissing about with cars in the UK, and while I'm not easily impressed (there's only a handful of other tuners I can think of off the top of my head I'd like to write about), anyone who can so consistently produce such mental stuff as him, without the kind of WRC-style budgets and huge staff levels this kind of craziness normally comes from, gets my vote...

To see more, check out the Zurawski Motorsport Facebook page HERE, and there's a website HERE too.

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Hi, I'm Stav...

You may or may not have heard of me, but I've spent the last 15 years working full-time in the tuning scene, and the last decade or so writing for various car magazines.I'm probably best known as 'Stavros', ex-DepEd of UK tuning magazine Redline (RIP), but I've also worked for countless other mags on a freelance basis, FastCar, Banzai, Japanese Performance, Fast Ford, Audi Tuner, Performance BMW, BMW Car, and many more.

Unlike most people who work in automotive media, I've no degree in journalism (hence my average grammar skills!), but unlike most, I really, truly, am hugely in to it rather than just faking it to pay the bills, it's a huge part of my life- My hobby is building and drivingstupidly fast cars, simple as that.​Because tuning has been my job and my hobby for so long, I've experienced and learnt and incredible amount, good and surprisingly bad, a lot of these things that totally go against conventional thinking/rumour too, and as I constantly get asked for advice by tuners and tuning fans, I thought maybe I should have an official outlet for my knowledge, and that's here...